It wasn't a plan. It was a hazy, half formed idea, but Ava didn't give herself time to doubt it. She stepped backwards into the air and let herself drop. Barely registering her landing she worked her way into the Vex network and smothered any communication concerning herself, Valora who was dropping down next to her, or her Ghost. It was different than what she had done earlier. Then she had kept herself outside the network, merely a bystander tossing pebbles into a pond. This time she had plunged into the water herself- with no idea how to swim. Ava tried to keep herself tethered to reality in some form. She tried to concentrate on the overgrown path she stood on, but it was rapidly slipping away from her. She felt like she was splintering, dissolving into the network around her.

Ava, Greer's stress on the edge of Ava's awareness, I'm not waiting. You won't make it.

Ava used Greer's voice to pull herself back, to find Valora landing next to her. "Better fly fast, Greer." She said, finding it difficult to locate her mouth and tell it to speak. "Keep low." She knew her Ghost was doing just that when she felt the ripple in the network. She scattered her mind a little further to stamp out any mention of her Ghost.

It was almost too much. She was spread too far. She tasted blood. She talked to Valora, trying to keep from slipping any further. She wasn't sure what she said. She forgot the words as soon as she said them.

You do not belong here. No voice spoke, but she heard the words. They surrounded her, a heavy presence of curiosity at her existence. Her hold on reality faltered in surprise. You are a dead thing.

She felt more than heard herself repeat the words. Felt Valora catch her, then realized she had been falling. She kept talking, kept walking. Her body felt heavy. It felt wrong. She didn't belong in it.

Greer returned. The shattering sensation eased slightly as the variables reduced a fraction. She managed to pull herself together the tiniest bit. She felt the brush of the metal against the fingers she trailed against the buildings as she walked.

Valora said her name and Ava realized she had stopped talking. She started again, trying to explain why they were there. The Vex were increasing. Her moment of respite over she stretched further into the network. Her body moved automatically as she devoted her attention to holding the Vex off.

Nothing exists in that space. There is no threat.

Valora said something, her tone angry. Something about forcing the other Guardian's away. Maybe that Ava had been unable to send Valora away. Nobody could ever say that she didn't try, but Valora's chances were good. Better than anyone else's. She should tell her.

She didn't know what she told her. Ava couldn't focus on what she said and the Vex.

You are mistaken, she told them. You have miscalculated.

She had miscalculated. When hadn't she? She heard herself laugh, and felt the bitterness of the sound. For a moment it drew her back to where she stood at an intersection. Their destination was close, at least physically, but lined with Vex it was light years away. There was no going back. They didn't have the time or firepower to fight their way through. No choice but to step forward and keep talking.

Variables increased. Ava faltered, her grip on reality weakening as she shifted still further away from it to silence the warning bells. She went too deep. That curious presence waited, ready to pull her in entirely. It wanted to know. Wanted-

Valora swore. It shocked Ava, caught her attention enough that she saw Valora in focus when she turned to her. She heard laughter, realized it was her own. She had grown unaccustomed to the noise- to the lack of hesitation in it. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed like that.

She couldn't remember… anything?

The Vex were finding purchase against her attack. They were aware of it, aware she was the cause. She was drifting apart, fraying at the edges. She lost track of which place was real. Real was subjective.

Somewhere she was walking through unmoving Vex. Somewhere she lost ground as she battled them. Somewhere she felt pain. Somewhere she lost her balance. Somewhere something caught her. Somewhere nothing did.

She had spread herself out too far to react quickly. She couldn't draw herself back as the Vex surrounded her. As the curiosus presence pulled at her seams, demanding to know. Know what she was. How a dead thing came to be here. She was a dead thing.

She was a Guardian.

Ava found her Light, tugged on the already strained cords. She just needed a bit of cover to get them through the door. The door was close. The door was closed.

Greer?

She didn't hear her Ghost's response as the smoke bomb dropped from her hand. Not her best work, but considering the circumstances she was surprised she could do it at all.

The Vex faltered as Ava released her megear hold on them and they became completely aware of the Guardian presence in their midst. Aware of the fact that they had disappeared from sight again. She used the moment of reprieve to drag herself out of the network. Distantly she was aware of Valora dragging her up the steps. She did what she could to hold her own weight, trying to feel her own feet.

They made it through the door. Ava saw the room, recognized it. It was only dark and rotting for a second before she slid into another time. People moved through the space under harsh lights.

The world tilted. Her knees slammed into the ground and she focused on the pain. She used it to pull herself into the right time as she fell onto her back. She didn't see the Minotaur, but she saw the intention and fired.

Valora turned toward the threat and Ava dragged herself to her feet. She found it surprisingly easy, only a brief moment of dizziness accompanying the movement.

The Minotaur fell and they backed further into the room side by side. The Vex continued, pressing closer to Ava than she would like. Something was wrong. Her bullets slammed into the far wall, somehow missing the Vex that she fired on at near point blank range.

A Goblin appeared directly in front of her without teleporting, and she had no idea where it came from. She took it out with a knife.

Greer?

No response.

"Greer!"

Nothing. She dispatched another Goblin with a knife. Valora continued to fire, but Ava could no longer see the Vex around them. She knew they were there because a second later Valora tossed a grenade her way and she smelled scorching metal.

It took a moment for it to click in Ava's mind that the Vex had turned her attack against her. The recovery had been too easy, but she had taken it without any suspicion.

She didn't see the Minotaur that slammed into her, throwing her into the desk in the back corner of the room. Her back slammed into it before she slid down to the ground, half curled on her side. She was vaguely aware of her gun laying inches from her fingertips before it was gone along with everything around her.

Her eyes drifted closed, then fluttered open. Blue light bathed smooth stone walls. She tried to draw breath into ruined lungs and caught a whiff of the caves. For a moment she saw the Minotaur as it raised it's foot over her body. Distantly she wondered if it would hurt when it killed her.

It does.

She's drowning in radioloria. She's sinking, being dragged down. She tries to swim, tries to scream. She has no body. She has no existence beyond this pain and the looming curiosity that she cannot satisfy. She will not satisfy. If she breaks all is lost. She is lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. Alone. Dying. Dying alone. Again.

Fire. Warm and familiar it burned away the pain until Ava remembered her name. She let it pull her up toward the sound of distant chaos and the taste of blood. But the curiosity wanted to follow. It wanted more Light. Ava wasn't going back. She tightened her grip on Valora, begged that connection to be the stronger one.

Her fingers were digging into something almost soft. Something hovered over her. Someone. Valora. Ava released Valora's wrist and brought her arm up to cover her eyes. The light was too bright, the noise too loud. She barely registered the pain of Greer knitting bone back together. She was too busy marveling at the fact that she could feel it at all.

The Curiosity lingered, though it had no power over her. It waited, knowing she would be back. The vague presence enough to remind her that she could not escape.

I'm sorry, Greer fretted as she finished healing, I didn't know anything was wrong until-

I know. The Vex- She didn't bother to finish the thought as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Greer knew anyway.

"You good?" Valora asked from where she was still kneeling next to Ava.

It took a moment for the words to register, another for Ava's mind to grasp the meaning. She answered automatically, then immediately lost the conversation. The room was wrong. She was wrong. She didn't fit here, didn't belong. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Real was subjective.

Ava? Greer's usually calm tone was now pure panic.

Ava's eyes landed on the door as she realized an alarm was blaring around them. The Vex. The mission. She took a deep breath. "We don't have time to clear everything as we go."

Time was a construct.

Ava, please.

"As long as we keep moving and take out the heavy hitters we should be able to get through the rest of the building without much trouble."

Valora moved, drawing Ava's attention as she stood and held out a hand. "So, we go through Hunter style?"

With a brief flicker of what might have at one time been amusement Ava picked up her gun and took the offered hand. "Eh," she found her balance, and flexed her fingers trying to fit back into her body. "It'll be fun."

Another automatic response, but this one felt less alien to her tongue. She could feel every breath draw into her lungs, and beneath the rot and dust there was the scent of her old life.

"Ava, which way do we go?" Valora asked with forced lightness and a hand on Ava's shoulder.

Ava didn't remember Valora grabbing her shoulder. She'd probably asked the same question more than once. "Greer should have sent everything to Aiden." It was too much work to string her thoughts into coherent sentences.

"She did," Valora admitted, shaking her head slightly, "but I need you to talk to me." As she spoke Valora gently prodded Ava toward the hallway on the left.

Ava eyed the center corridor as she turned, following the echo of her phantom footsteps for a moment longer before blocking it out. "What do you want me to talk about?" She asked because she knew Valora was right. Where she expected the irrational hatred to revive there was nothing. A vague emptiness. A reminder that she still couldn't quite feel her fingers even as she fiddled with the trigger of her gun.

"Anything. Just talk."

"I think your hair frames your face wrong." It was the first way to deflect that came to her mind. Another automatic response. "I'm sorry." She corrected at Valora's scoff. "That was-" she momentarily lost the word, and the concept it named "rude?"

"Clearly. You have to ask?"

"I'm sorry." She repeated. They were nearing the elevator shaft, no Vex in sight. They would be waiting below, but for the moment all was calm. Ava's stunt had given them that much, at least. As long as she could keep on her feet this could actually work.

"Stop saying that!"

It took a moment for Ava to bring Valora into focus. Another to realize they had stopped walking. The hallway she had just been staring down was now behind her, and she had been repeating the same two words the entire time. She repressed the urge to say them again and turned her attention to the elevator doors. They were shut. She reached for the button on the side out of habit, pausing with her finger hovering over it when it caught up to her that there was no longer an elevator to call. She could still see the glow, and hear the hum of machinery when she decided to press it anyway, just because she wanted to.

She wanted a moment where her only discomfort was the mild impatience of waiting for the elevator when she had work to do. A moment of optimistic curiosity. A moment where she believed wholeheartedly in what she was doing- in what good would come from it. She knew what came next. Knew it turned to smashing the button repeatedly in blind panic before giving up and taking the stairs because she couldn't hold her body still when her mind was moving so fast.

Knew it came down to this moment with Valora's hand on her shoulder, and Ava's forehead pressed against the worn metal.

"I want to go back." The words were too small for what she wanted. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She had no idea where and when, exactly, she wanted to go back to. Just that she didn't want to be here, and she didn't want to go forward when she knew the thousands of terrible ways it could end.

"You can't."

Ava thought she might have felt Valora squeeze her shoulder. "I know." She shifted to the side and dug her fingers into the crack between the doors. Valora helped her pry them open and they both stared down into the depths. "All the way down. They know we're coming. We kill only what we need to. Don't ever stop moving." Ava repeated the steps to herself, only partially aware that she was speaking out loud.

"Can you make it?"

"No choice." She jumped. Her longing to go back evaporated as she fell, replaced by another impulse, another stolen thought. By the time her feet hit solid ground she had forgotten how she got there.

~0~0~

I'm back months later with something that I've had written since about the time I last updated... Originally I was going to add more to this to make it longer but at this point it's just like does anything even matter? ya know? I've been writing a lot lately bc there are very limited things to do at the moment and I'm thinking i might actually finally finish this soon lol its only been like four years and we're actually not far from the end at this point I just have to like actually write it I guess

Thanks Shy911 for your review sorry to disappoint you with my terrible punctuality

as for anyone else still reading PLEASE TALK TO ME I AM NOT ABOVE BEGGING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE seriously what else are you doing rn anyway? send me a :) or a :( or tell me about your pets maybe idk just let me know you're there and we could all use a good conversation in these strange times